I know there's a way to make sex-linked crosses using fibro breeds, so you may have unintentionally done that. I'm not familiar with the crosses though, so
@NatJ might be able to better help there.
If the father has dark skin (blue/green/black) and the mother has light skin (white or yellow), then the daughters will have dark skin like their father, and the sons will have light skin like their mother.
Fibro (makes the "dark" skin be actually black) makes this much more obvious than just normal blue or green "dark" skin.
But there are other genes that can make the situation confusing. For example, the genes to make a black chicken will also add black to the skin of the legs. The blue gene will make the leg skin lighter, just like it makes black feathers into blue or splash feathers.
I'm honestly leaning towards them all being from the silkie rooster...If your silkie only has one copy of the comb genes and fifth toe gene, that might be the cause of what we're seeing.
That explanation makes sense to me too.
I think it is the best explanation for all those crests.
The splash color is interesting because that only comes from two blues crossed. Do you have a photo of your blue rooster?
That would have been a great way to narrow down which rooster was involved, except that all three of them turned out to be blue
That last pullet is barred, but that wouldn't come from the crele Penedesenca hen. Barred hens crossed to non-barred roosters give you sexlinks. Barred cockerels and non-barred pullets. Her father was barred, since a barred rooster gives barring to all of his offspring. Strange though that it didn't show in any of the cockerels.
I suspect that pullet has autosomal barring instead, caused by a combination of other genes, not the sex-linked barring gene that is so much more common. Autosomal barring is sometimes called horizontal penciling. It is found in Gold Penciled Hamburgs and in Egyptian Fayoumis. It is genetically very similar to lacing or to the Buttercup color pattern. In fact, I wonder if that pullet does have the Buttercup as her mother. I don't see a split comb, but from what I've read, the Buttercup comb gene can be a bit inconsistent in whether it makes visible effects in mixed chicks.
I have a lot that are looking very legbar but don’t have any Legbars.
Legbars have a lot of Leghorn genes. So if you hatched lots of eggs from Leghorn hens, and the Silkie rooster gave them each a crest, I think that would explain them pretty nicely. Depending on exactly which genes the Silkie has, that could also explain the variety of comb types and amounts of leg feathering.
I don't think the feathered legs come from the brahmas since none of the offspring have pea combs.
The Orloff isn't the mother either because none of the offspring are bearded, though that would give the rose comb genes you are seeing.
If we think the Silkie rooster is carrying the genes for single comb and for a normal number of toes, I wouldn't be too quick to rule out the Brahma and the Orloff as possible mothers. The Brahma might have only one pea comb gene, and the Orloff might have only one beard gene.
Looking at all the chicks, I think the Silkie probably has two crest genes, and is the father of all the crested chicks, given the rest of the possible breeds. Given the statement that most eggs hatched came from the Leghorn hens, I think that accounts for most of the chicks, with a few of the others maybe having a different mother (maybe a Buttercup for the barred-looking pullet, maybe a Brahma for the few with the heaviest foot feathering, maybe one of the other breeds here or there.)
I always like to play the guessing game since it’s helps me pick out distinct features and learn a bunch. But I just can’t with these lol! Here’s some more from the group. You can def see which ones are the silkies. Some have blue legs and some have a greenish.
